It's the dawn of a new year. From our perch on the frontier of electronic civil liberties, EFF has collected a list of a dozen important trends in law, technology and business that we think will play a significant role in shaping online rights in 2010.

In December, we'll revisit this post and see how it all worked out.

1. Attacks on Cryptography: New Avenues for Intercepting Communications

In 2010, several problems with cryptography implementations should come to the fore, showing that even encrypted communications aren't as safe as users expect. Two of the most significant problems we expect concern cellphone security and web browser security.

I've published an op-ed over at The Wrap, a leading blog for Hollywood insiders. It makes the point that Hollywood's attacks on DVD innovators (RealDVD, Kaleidescape, Redbox) amount to an attack on legitimate DVD customers who are trying to pay for content that they could almost as easily download for free from unauthorized sources. So, when Hollywood complains about "piracy," some of that is a self-inflicted wound:

Our friends at Public Knowledge have been doing a great job in Washington, D.C., fighting against the MPAA's efforts to selectively disable the high-definition analog (i.e., "component" video) outputs on your cable box. In essence, Hollywood is telling the FCC that it won't give Americans early access to blockbuster movies unless the FCC lets it kill your analog outputs.

Public Knowledge has an update today, letting us know that Hollywood is back at the FCC pushing for this anti-consumer, anti-innovation change in the FCC rules:

Earlier this week, a federal court in Los Angeles ruled that Veoh, an online video hosting service similar to YouTube, qualifies for a DMCA safe harbor that protects the service from monetary damages for copyright infringements committed by its users. The plaintiff, Universal Music Group (UMG), alleged that many videos uploaded to Veoh included copyrighted sound recordings owned by UMG.

UPDATE: Just one day after Judge Patel's ruling against RealDVD, a California appeals court has ruled against Kaleidescape, reversing the lower court and sending that case back for a fresh determination of whether Kaleidescape violated the terms of the DVD-CCA license. More bad news for innovators who want to bring legitimate consumers DVD jukebox products.